By Socialism and Freedom Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialismo y Libertad, PSL)
Caracas, July 30, 2024. The government, through the National Electoral Council (CNE), executed last Sunday, July 28, a full-fledged fraud. The institution declared Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the elections with 51.21% against 44.2% of Edmundo González, candidate of the bosses’ opposition promoted by María Corina Machado.
The CNE, after midnight, when 40% of the tally sheets had been transmitted from the voting centers, interrupted such transmission. Towards the closing time of the voting centers, they began to remove the opposition witnesses, denied them the tally sheets, in some cases this was done by armed paramilitary colectivos. Likewise, members of the armed forces took away some ballot boxes with the voting receipts. Six hours after the closing of the voting tables, the CNE issued the bulletin declaring an irreversible trend with only 80% of the tally sheets accounted for. Suddenly the other 40% had “appeared” to complete this 80%, without having been transmitted from the voting centers. In this way, the government sought to reverse the trend favorable to the candidate of the bourgeois opposition, which since early morning hours had been clear in most of the polling places throughout the country.
A fraud foretold
The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL) had already been warning about the fraudulent character of the whole electoral process and alerted to the possibility that on the day of the elections the government would carry out a massive fraud.
For months now, the Maduro government has been deepening restrictions to democratic freedoms, while using all State resources in its favor and in an abusive manner. It did not consider requests for the legalization of political parties, illegalized others; disqualified candidates and political leaders, repressed and arrested activists and leaders of the bosses’ parties, and limited the possibility for Venezuelans abroad to vote. The independent left and opposition to the government of false socialism was prevented from presenting a candidacy that would represent the interests of the working people.
The majority of the Venezuelan people are fed up and repudiate a government that has plunged us into the most grave social tragedy of our contemporary history. A repressive government that applies a brutal capitalist austerity, with wages below 4 dollars a month and with public services, health and education destroyed. The repudiation of Maduro’s government was wrongly channeled towards the candidate of the bosses’ opposition, generating great expectations among the people for the possibility of putting an end to this dictatorial, corrupt and starving regime.
The popular indignation at the fraud explodes
The massive fraud carried out by the government has produced a great indignation that today is expressed with protests and pots and pans banging in popular neighborhoods of Caracas such as Catia, Cota 905, Petare, El Guarataro, Carapita, El Valle, but also in lower and upper middle class areas such as Chacaíto, Chacao, Altamira, as well as in other cities of the country. These protests are being repressed by the police, the National Guard and the armed paramilitary collectives acting under the protection of the security forces. As a result of this, and according to several human rights organizations, as of the time of writing this statement, between 6 and 9 people have been killed, hundreds have been injured and more than 100 people have been detained.
The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL) categorically repudiates the fraud that the government intends to impose, violating the will of the workers and the popular sectors. We defend the right to vote of millions of people who demonstrated at the polls against Maduro’s government of false socialism, regardless of the fact that we do not support and in fact oppose Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, Maria Corina Machado, and the bourgeois opposition parties.
In a press conference held yesterday, Tuesday, María Corina Machado and Edmundo González did not call for deepening the mobilization, they barely mentioned the protests taking place in the country. They did not repudiate the repression by the government and the paramilitary colectivos, and limited themselves to call for “popular assemblies of citizens”, lasting only one hour, and exhorted people to go home afterwards. Already in the months prior to the elections they made the people believe that only by voting could the government be defeated, they never warned about the fraud, today it is clear that they continue with their vacillating policy that favors negotiations.
It is necessary to give continuity to the popular protest, keeping us in the streets organizing the mobilization. The popular assemblies of citizens must be converted into permanent organizations of the whole community to discuss how to continue the struggle and organize the defense against repression and the paramilitary colectivos.
Only with the broad and unitary mobilization will it be possible to defeat the government of Maduro and the fraud he is trying to impose to perpetuate himself in power and to continue applying his capitalist austerity in collusion with important business and transnational sectors, hiding behind a false socialist discourse. We must continue to mobilize massively to defeat the fraud in the perspective of continuing the struggle for the workers and the people to govern, and for true socialism with workers’ and popular democracy.
No to fraud!
In the face of fraud, popular mobilization!
July 30